


The Adventures of Billy and Jane feat. Some Other Assholes

by coochiesandcreme



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fix-It, I sure do say fuck a lot in this, M/M, Slow Burn, billy's gotta crawl before he can walk y'all sorry, thanks for what you brought me but uh yeah you gotta go, that's right even alexei, yeah i'm gonna marie kondo ST3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-07-28 13:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20064604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coochiesandcreme/pseuds/coochiesandcreme
Summary: in which:billy and jane have that bond that only almost dying horribly after extreme mental trauma can forgebilly and will also learn that sometimes being fucked up together is easier than being fucked up alonebilly is sweet on steve and isn’t it great he’s friends with an actual psychicrobin is the coolest, but the rest of the gang have their moments





	1. punching at the sky, feeling just fine

**Author's Note:**

> so i watched ST3 and was kinda ??? at some... narrative choices, though mostly billy's. duffer bros really uh. really thought they did something. with that.
> 
> so yeah everyone lived, though the basic premise of season 3 remains: mind flayed billy, mind flayed hawkins civilians, etc etc
> 
> alexei DID get shot but pulled through, billy DID get hole punched like he was going in a three ring binder but pulled through this will be explained semi-satisfactorily, and i'm handwaving the hopper thing bc that felt sloppy to me. he killed the one guy and then got the fuck out of there, this is my boat and im the captain
> 
> billy and steve will happen as the Romance Aspect of this fic, but i think billy and jane have a lot of similarities in the "severe emotional/physical trauma due to the loss of a mother and an extremely shitty father" department and i think that'd be fun to explore! also give billy some friends, jesus
> 
> also i vaguely googled tracheostomy's and intubation, and they would have definitely been around in the 80's, though i'm not sure why i thought these were highly recent additions to medical science
> 
> christ these notes are long, anyways pairing for this chapter is billy/throat tube and this is unbeta'd so sorry for any mistakes i didnt catch! also i love comments even if it's just an exclamation point!

Billy wakes up.

Billy wakes up and is so_ fucking _ confused that it actually takes a full, literal minute before the seething anger bubbles up at the goddamn shitting indignity of having to deal with this shit. _ Again _ . He shakes with it, at the fury of finally being out, being _ done _ only for, no, sorry, after being beat around by his dad and then a giant fucking Hamburger Helper alien he has to keep.

_ Fucking _.

_ Going _.

So he can be forgiven for not immediately noticing a burly guy in the chair next to the - is he in a hospital bed? - and the small child standing by his side.

Staring at him.

Like _ really _ staring at him, Jesus Christ, he has had up to fucking _ here _ with these shit ass goblins looking at him all the goddamn time. He forces his eyes to focus - why is his vision so blurry anyway - and once it feels like he’s not looking in two different directions at extremely different focal lengths he has the nagging idea he’s seen her before.

And it is a her, he realises. Her hair is different, he thinks, a little longer and less wild, and she’s not wearing yellow this time. But the face is the same. That look that she’s seen shit so much further and deeper than he has. Her voice is the same too, when she speaks.

Seven feet, Billy. 

She was so pretty, Billy.

“Welcome back, Billy.”

She smiles, and Billy’s brain decides to handle this information by shutting the fuck down.

\---

Billy wakes up again, and since he’s not angry - well, not _ as _ angry - at the bullshit fuckery of being conscious, he realises he’s exhausted. And also in a frankly ridiculous amount of pain, though he must be on some good shit since it feels like it’s coming through a haze of cotton fluff.

The big guy in the chair is gone, but the girl is still there. Her clothes are different again, so it must be a different day. She’s looking down into her lap at a comic book, so he tries to get her attention to figure out what in Jesus fuck is happening.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hrghlgh,” is what actually comes out of his mouth, which coincidentally has a fucking tube in it. 

She looks up though, and comes over to stop him from batting feebly at the wires and shit he can now feel hooked to him.

“Billy,” she says, settling his hands, “stop. Calm. It’s okay.”

“Fuck you,” he tries to say, because what does he have if not his reputation as a fucking degenerate, but of course it comes out like he’s gargling marbles. 

She smiles again. “That’s rude. No swearing.” Either he’s predictable, or she’s reading his mind. 

** _Both._ **

Billy nearly ejects the tube down his throat himself, he starts surpise-coughing so hard. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck why is there a voice in his head that’s not his -

** _Billy. Calm. It’s okay. It’s me._ **

He can feel his eyes darting around, and suddenly he’s not in his bed he’s kneeling over her and it’s the mall he can smell smoke see neon there’s something behind him something in him something in him something in him build what you see-

** _The boardwalk. The beach, Billy. You got ice cream. You dropped yours. She gave you hers. It was strawberry. _ **

He’d stumbled in the sand.

** _She gave you hers._ **

He remembers the warmth of her hand. He remembers the strawberry.

** _She gave you hers._ **

She gave him his.

His vision is cloudy again, and his face is wet. She looks down at him and for fucking once he doesn’t see the pity he’s learned to hate. She just looks. 

Who the fuck are you.

The smile’s back. The small one, like she’s not sure how to do it.

“Jane.” 

Jane.

\---

Billy wakes the fuck up again and if he could stop blacking out that’d be great.

It looks like early afternoon, but his sense of time is royally fucked so the most he can gather is that the sun is indeed up. The tube’s still in his throat but Jane is gone. Max is in her place.

He’s not sure if he’s actually happy to see her, but he’s at least grateful to see she hadn’t gotten eaten or whatever by the whatever that was. Otherwise Neil would fucking finish the job, tube or no tube.

Also there’s a cop and Billy is actually okay with blacking out right now, immediately.

Cop Man sees he’s awake though, and comes closer to his bedside. Billy looks up warily and thanks the tube for giving him a reason to glare instead of give answers to whatever bullshit he’s about to be asked.

Cop Man introduces himself as Jim Hopper, the sheriff, which does little to Billy’s estimation of him except promote him to Sheriff Man in his head. He explains to Billy what happened during the weekend of the Fourth. The mall. The alien from another fucking dimension. 

What the alien from another fucking dimension made him do.

If his stomach wasn’t empty he’s pretty sure he’d be spewing.

Sheriff Man gives him the bullshit he’s already expecting. It’s Not Your Fault. We’ve Seen This Before. You Couldn’t Have Known. 

Billy wants to blow his fucking brains out. Wants Sheriff Man Hopper to take out that heat he’s packing and ventilate his fucking skull right here for reducing the population of this apparently cursed to shit town by a good 10%.

He stares rigidly at the ceiling until Sheriff Man gets a fucking clue and leaves, threatening vague promises to pick up where they left off. He can feel Max looking at him, but his brain isn’t even close to being on the same planet enough to begin talking to her, throat tube or no throat tube.

Max jumps when he mashes the call nurse button like it owes him money. Sits there obviously unsure of what to do when Billy glares at the nurse and points weakly, but definitively at the tube. 

Five minutes and some extremely dignified gagging and drooling later, he’s able to point at Max and gravel out something in the neighbourhood of, “Water.”

Once his throat feels a little bit less like he scraped it raw on the road, he gives her the best hairy eyeball he can while simultaneously slipping back into a dead sleep.

\---

Billy has spent the last 20 minutes since waking up re-learning how to tell the world in lengthy and explicit detail how to go fuck itself. Whoever comes through that door next is about to fucking get it, that’s all he knows.

The door opens.

“Go fuck yourself off a cliff you goddamn fucking-”

It’s Jane and Max, and Sheriff Hopper is behind them. Jane laughs, Hopper glowers. Max looks a mix between holding back tears and irritated at his shit.

Billy nearly swallows his tongue being embarrassed for the first time since he got pantsed in the sixth grade.

“You’re lucky you’re in that bed, Hargrove,” is all Hopper says before taking a seat in what is apparently His Chair. Jane takes a seat next to him, Max perching on the armrest. “Your voice is back,” Jane states. “I’m glad.”

Billy has no idea how to talk with someone who doesn’t talk so much as list observations, so he settles with an elegant grunt. Hopper rolls his eyes.

Max is staring at the toe of her shoe. Billy huffs. “What’s the matter, shitbird, nothin’ to say? Not gonna threaten my balls with a bat again?” 

It’s a shitty olive branch but he feels like shit so it’s as good as he’s got for the moment.

Max’s head snaps up, face blotchy in anger, and he can tell she’s about to lay back into him before Jane puts a hand on her arm. Max takes a deep steadying breath, and lays into him anyway.

“If you ever, _ ever _ \- ” this is punctuated by some very aggressive pointing, “ - do that kind of hero shit again, I will take a bat to your balls, and then to your ghost’s balls.” Her lip wobbles, but she doesn’t break. “So don’t, um. Don’t try to be cool. Because you’re my asshole brother, Billy, you’re not cool, like, _ at all _.” She sniffs, and everyone in the room pretends like her eyes aren’t taking a particular sheen of moisture.

Hopper cuts in, gruff but quiet. “You did a brave thing, Hargrove. A real brave thing.” 

Billy’s throat works as he thinks about all the people who would have extremely dissenting opinions on that. He loses himself in it deep enough for a second that he almost doesn’t feel Jane touching his arm. Pulling him back.

“You saved us, Billy.” Statement.

Billy closes his eyes, because if Max wants to go misty eyed that’s fine but again, what does he have if not his reputation.

“No,” he says finally, roughly. “No, I really didn’t.” 

Somehow, he knows Jane is smiling that small smile. She squeezes his arm gently and moves away. 

Billy squinches his eyes before opening them wide, willing away what were definitely not tears. Decides that’s quite enough of being a fucking human with feelings for the day. Swallows past the lump that’s sprung up into his throat and declares:

  
“If someone doesn’t get this fucking tube out of my dick in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to go _ fucking apeshit _.”


	2. how did i get here feels like a light year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> billy's extremely thrilling hospital adventures featuring siblings being siblings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forget that because dacre montgomery is clearly Not Eighteen that billy hargrove as a character is like. a shitty highschooler/college freshman. so thats why im making some of the language choices im making. you're just gonna see the word fuck a lot in this story so uh get right with god on that one is all i have to say 
> 
> and before anyone points it out, i spell some things the pip pip cheerio big ben london star way aka colour/armour, using an s instead of a z etc
> 
> also i completely forgot that martin brenner (aka Papa) didn't actually die in season 1 because the duffer brothers think this is a plot line we're interested in exploring. just kill him! there are plenty of other evil white men to take his place! you fucked up the line i was gonna write because i thought he was dead!!!
> 
> anyways enjoy why are my chapter notes always so fucking long???

Billy gets the tube out of his dick but has also been in a coma for three months so the profit from the trade-off is minor. It’s November, not that it really means anything to him. Everyone else kept moving for three months but for Billy it’s, like, July 10th. He’s distantly annoyed that he missed the end of summer because now he can’t wear his shirts unbuttoned down to his fucking nut sac without severe risk of nipple frost bite. 

He hates Indiana.

He’d had a punctured lung that had to be re-inflated, shattered ribs, internal bleeding. He’d lost his spleen and his appendix, which he finds hilarious because wow, what a one up on appendicitis. Oh, you got some stomach cramps? I had a dimension-invading flesh alien mash mine into paste with a tentacle. Some shit luck janitor probably had to mop that up off the mall floor.

He’s told he’s lucky he didn’t suffer any spinal injuries, and he just snorts. He’s told that he’s lost both weight and muscle mass and clenches his jaw so hard he feels the muscle flex. All that fucking work, gone, and he won’t even be able to lift for months, the doctor says. Recuperation and physical therapy for months, just to gain back normal functionality. 

He’s gonna be forced to use a fucking  _ walker _ . Like he’s  _ old _ .

The doctor shows it to him one day when Max is visiting and she brays like a donkey at his look of indignant fury. 

“Oh  _ man _ ,” she cackles, while he cusses the air blue, “we should  _ totally _ paint that the same colour as the Camaro.” 

\---

She does, in fact, paint it the same colour of the Camaro and it’s only the fact that he can barely raise his arms to shoulder height, let alone stand on his own that stops it from whipping it at her like a baseball. 

It says, “V8 Interceptor,” up one leg because Max is just so fucking funny.

\---

After the goddamn bulleted list of the various and sundry ways his body got unequivocally fucked to hell, he has to ask Hopper how he even made it out of that mall. 

The highlights are that Harrington carried him out while Jane used her psychic powers to fucking  _ keep his heart pumping and blood circulating _ , Jesus _ Christ _ . 

He doesn’t fucking know what to say to that.

“I don’t fucking know what to say to that,” he tells Hopper. He owes her like.  _ So much _ booze when she’s old enough to drink.

Hopper gives him the look all adults give people more than ten years younger than them when they’re being stupid but also endearing. “You could start with, ‘thank you, Jane, for not letting me bleed out on the floor of a mall.’” He gestures towards her like he’s Vanna White or something.

He refuses to be a normal person though, and promises her the first cigarette out of the first pack he buys when he springs from the hospital. Hopper looks aggrieved with having to be alive. Jane just looks at Billy very solemnly and tells him smoking is bad for him.

\---

Billy’s doing his best impression of a hobbling geriatric to the bathroom when Hopper drops Jane off for a visit. He grunts at her, focusing on getting the fucking door open and not pissing himself while she takes her customary seat.

He’ll swallow old car oil before he’ll admit it, but out of all his grand, whopping total of three (3) visitors he gets regularly, Jane is his favourite because she understands the value of not always having to fucking  _ talk _ .

Half the time they sit there in silence while Billy melts his brain with daytime television. Sometimes she’ll watch with him, or read comics. She’ll ask what a word means sometimes, and he’ll tell her. 

And that’s it. It’s beautiful, he could cry.

Because Hopper? Max? The doctors? The fucking government spooks that showed up one day and made him sign a bunch of scary documents?

_ Won’t shut the fuck up _ .

Hopper won’t shut up about how Hawkins is doing now, like, forty people are dead, what happened at the mall, the other kids - like he could give a shit about those imps - he’s there to talk, just wants to help,  _ on and on and on _ .

Max won’t shut up about their family about the other kids - he notices how she tiptoes around mentioning the Sinclair kid too specifically - school now that it’s back in session, skateboarding, his car that Hopper, the older Byers kid and Harrington are working on fixing up, isn’t it so funny that Erica, like, hates communism  _ blah blah blah _ .

He briefly wonders if he’d be so lucky as to have an angel of death come and take him out in the night just so he wasn’t hostage to mindless  _ noise _ .

He doesn’t give a shit about any of it. Half the time he wakes up sweating, shaking, heart monitor going fucking bananas thinking it was all a dream and he’s still trapped in his own body.

How the fuck is gonna care about shit when he’s not even sure it’s  _ real. _

So yeah, Jane just sitting there and letting him sort through his shit quietly is a welcome fucking relief. It also lets him figure out how in the hell he’s gonna talk to a kid who a) has seen some truly fucked up shit b) has seen him be the cause of some truly fucked up shit and c) has helped him through some fucked up shit by  _ seeing his own fucked up shit _ .

Hard to talk to someone who’s like. Seen your bared soul or whatever. Like, what do you even say.

“Start with hello,” Jane says absently, eyes not leaving her issue of Wonder Woman.

Billy glares at her, and she serenely ignores it.

“Man, don’t do that,” he grouses. She smiles but doesn’t look up.

“Sorry.” Not sorry. Brat.

“Whatever.”

She holds up her comic. “Have you read this?”

He squints at it. It’s been… fucking years, actually, but yeah he has. “Not Wonder Woman, no, but I read some Batman stuff when I was a kid. I don’t keep up with that nerd shit.” Billy watches her mouth the phase to herself a few times. “They like, team up or whatever, I don’t remember. She had her own TV show.” Jane perks up at this and points at the mounted TV.

“On there?” He nods. She makes the face that means she’s going to bug the shit out of Hopper about it later.

\---

“Why don’t you go to school?” he asks her one day, and then feels like a fucking clown. Yeah, why  _ doesn’t _ the tortured psychic kid go to school, Billy, golly fuckin’  _ gee _ , what a conundrum.

Jane considers it like it’s a question worth the brain cells it takes to think about it though, because she’s a champ. “Loud,” she finally decides. “It’s just too loud.” 

Billy chews that over. “Like… in your head, it’s loud?”

She hums a confirmation, and points at the TV. “All the shows are on at once. It makes everything harder.” She rolls her eyes suddenly. “And Dustin is loud.”

He doesn’t remember which one of the little freaks is which besides Sinclair, but they all seem fucking obnoxious so he doesn’t blame her. “Middle schoolers are shitheads, anyways, so you skated.” She tilts her head questioningly. “It means you’re lucky you don’t have to deal with something.” 

“Did you like school?”

He wants to laugh out a  _ fuck _ no, but figures if Jane can answer his dumb ass, he can answer hers. “Not really. It was a place I had to go, but I didn’t like  _ going _ . I guess it didn’t always suck total shit, but it was mostly just to not. Be home.” He grits out the reality of that answer, and tries not to think about how many mornings he tried to be a fucking ghost in his own house. Prayed that the engine turning over wouldn’t wake him up.

Jane, to her credit, let’s him have a moment and goes back to her comic.

\---

“My Papa is a bad man, too,” she volunteers one day, apropos of nothing, while Hopper stays true to himself and snores in his chair.

Billy blinks, and toasts his water cup at her. She toasts her can of vending machine soda.

“I’ll fucking drink to that,” he says.

\---

Approximately one month after he can keep his eyes open longer for two seconds, he completes his first successful lap around the recovery ward and promptly collapses back onto his bed, legs shaking.

“Fuck walking, holy  _ shit _ , I’m never doing that again,  _ Christ _ ,” he gasps into the pillow dramatically while Jane and Max clap. 

“Good job, Billy,” Jane says sincerely.

“Yeah, good job, Billy,” Max says, wide-eyed and not meaning it because she’s every bit the asshole he is. “Maybe by New Year’s you’ll be able to do, like,  _ two  _ laps, that’d be pretty killer and super impressive.”

“I swear to fucking god,  _ Maxine _ ,” he snaps, glaring, “As soon as I don’t need this thing I’m punting your ass to the fucking  _ moon _ .” Max makes the, ‘ooh I’m so scared’ face while Jane laughs. 

“Just don’t throw out your hip, _ Billiam _ , have to lurch your way around even more than you already do -”

If her plan is to fuel his recovery by annoying the fucking shit out of him, he thinks as he throws whatever is in reach at her, it’s fucking working.

\---

He realises it’s almost Thanksgiving when he sees hokey hospital decorations during one of his laps around the ward.

He’s feeling things like a human person about it when Hopper stops by, sans Jane or shitbird step-sister. 

“So. Thanksgiving,” he says running his hand over his mouth. “You’re not, uh, cleared to leave the hospital yet, but ever since Jane found out what the day’s about she’s been asking me if we can spend it here with you. I’d told her you might not be feeling up to it, but I’d ask, so.” 

Billy’s not sure what to say. He’s tempted to take the out Hopper’s offering because he’s definitely not sure he’s feeling up to it, but he might also jump out a window if left unsupervised.

He thinks about hot ass Novembers on the West Coast and a pumpkin pie she’d always fuck up at least twice despite none of them even liking pumpkin.

“Yeah,” he says finally. Not looking at Hopper, instead choosing to watch the snow that’s started to fall. “I’m up to it.”

He hates Indiana, but at least it’s not California.

\---

Billy is pretty sure the turkey the hospital serves is actually recycled newspaper, and regrets being upgraded to solid foods. Jane and Hopper eat with him, and Max is there for a while before going back to the house.

Neil and Susan are conspicuously absent and Billy nearly vaporises Hopper and Max with a look when they come anywhere near the subject. Jane is too busy poking suspiciously at what looks to be the stale juice at the bottom of a can of cranberry sauce to pay much attention.

Somehow, it’s the best Thanksgiving he’s had in years.

\---

“Are you thankful for anything, Billy?” Jane asks when they leave. Hopper and Max are waiting in the hallway.

He snorts. “Grateful I can piss and wash myself, I guess. Sponge baths are only nice when the nurse is hot.” She rolls her eyes and asks again.

“I’m thankful for all of Lord Jesus God’s little creatures and cigarettes and not having my spine snapped like a pretzel stick. Is that better?” 

Jane gives him an unimpressed look, but allows him his deflection. They look out the window where the snow has turned to that grey mash it always does after a few days.

“I’m thankful we’re here,” she says finally, because she’s a master of the parting shot.

It’s a long time after she leaves that he thinks it’s not the dumbest thing to be thankful for.

\---

Hopper walks in the door one day only to be instructed to fuck off and come back with a razor or not at all, I’m tired of this fucking chicken scratch stubble on my face, man.

So Billy finally gets to shave, which is fine, until he really takes in the true monstrosity that is his hair.

The curls are going every which way, but also matted in places, but also still in the semblance of what could once have been perceived as a mullet. He’s been tying it back with a hair tie he snapped against Max’s wrist incessantly until she finally gave it up. He really couldn’t be fucked before now, but it’s been long enough that he thinks, yeah he’s gotta do something about this.

So he conscripts Jane into snatching Hopper’s clippers and shaves the sides of his head. He almost died, he’s  _ allowed _ dramatic hair choices.

Hopper is highly annoyed, as are the nurses because they hate fun.

Max says he looks like the cock he was always meant to be.

Jane smiles.

“Bitchin’,” she tells him.

He sticks his tongue out and throws up the horns.

“Nah, kid,” he tells her, smile all teeth. “It’s fuckin’  _ rad _ .”

\---

Hopper nearly takes his head off later after Jane says, “Fuckin’ rad,” in her usual monotone when he asks how her day was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im kind of stretching canon with jane still having powers but for clarity:
> 
> her actual telekinesis faded after axing the mind flayer and circulating billy's blood which i will... pretend is what happened because uh homeboi gotta pretty jacked up! so now she can do some minor mind reading but that's about it... for now (music plays)
> 
> also its a fucking au i can do what i want! 
> 
> at the moment i have No Clue what im gonna do with neil since i kinda just want him to get hit by a car and die, but i feel like i must be somewhat narratively coherent and usher him unceremoniously from the plot in some way. so. look forward to my deft handling of that situation.


	3. it's all over now upside down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> billy learns how to be a real boy, kind of, because he learns he's only kind of the most fucked up person he knows, and hopper becomes a father, again, congrats its a boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i literally stayed up all night writing more for this - ah yes hello sun and fuck you - so here you gooooo
> 
> for a change of pace the notes at the END will be really long bc i feel like i should be somewhat transparent about how i handle a certain Person

The first person to visit him who is not Max, or Jane, or Hopper is, shocker of shockers - 

\- the Wheeler chick.

“So, um,” she starts, looking uncomfortable as hell and looking literally everywhere but him, “I shot at you. Um, more than a few times? Like, a lot. And I’m really sorry about that, but you were still, like, mind flayed and trying to crash into us with your car after you stole some cable out of the one we were trying to take, and it was this whole thing - “

He holds up a hand to stop her, and then gestures to his bandaged torso concealing some truly gnarly scars. “I think I had some bigger fuckin’ problems, in the end, don’t you?”

Wheeler still looks conflicted and Billy waves her to a seat. “Listen, fuckin’ - look, I tried to hit you with my car, right?” She nods. “Like, turn you into roadkill kind of intent.” She nods again, vigorously. “Then be more upset at the fact you fuckin’ missed than the fact you did it at all.” She processes this for a second before shrugging in a ‘fair enough’ sort of way.

They sit there awkwardly for a few minutes before she groans and leans forward putting her head in her hands.

“I’ve shot, like. Way too many guns at way too many things in the past year,” she huffs out.

Billy raises his eyebrows. Who knew Wheeler was strapped. 

“Oh, yeah?” he asks, sipping his water. “Tell me about it, TV’s a wasteland this time of day.”

She does.

Oh yeah. Wheeler stays ready.

\---

Billy considers her once she’s finished giving him the rundown of how Hawkins is apparently the most dangerous place to live in the continental US. “Why are you even dating that Byers guy,” he asks, bluntly, because to be honest the guy had struck him as a total coward.

Wheeler flushes. “Well… and do not tell anyone I said this but he, like… fights me on things, I think because he’s a guy and that’s what guys do, but ends up helping me, even if it’s totally stupid and dangerous.” She shrugs. “Enabling isn’t super romantic, but it works for us.”

Billy stares at her until she starts to squirm. “That’s fucked up, Wheeler.”

She smiles, and oh yeah, Byers has his work cut out for him. “I figure if I can’t be a normal girl anymore, I might as well lean into it.”

Byers is hosed.

\---

Wheeler drops by more often after that, and gives him updates on the part of his social circle that’s at least old enough to cook their brains with pot and liquor without it being a corruption of the youth. Most of the douchebags she brings up he can’t even put a face too. Tommy H fucked off to Chicago, and isn’t that God’s hand at work. Carol’s still in Hawkins, and Byers is taking photos for the Hawkins Post. He wants to build up a resumé and portfolio, maybe strike out to Chicago or even New York.

Wheeler’s undecided. She’s taking on more responsibility at the Post now that most of the “chauvinist assholes,” melted down into slime - Billy is… undecided on his feelings about that - but she’s still unsure.

“Monster hunting isn’t much of a career, thank god,” she says wryly. Billy can see her in some sort of Annie Oakley meets Ripley kind of outfit, torching alien scum with a flamethrower in one hand and popping heads with a rifle in the other. He tells her so one day and she flutters her eyelashes coquettishly. 

“You sure know how to woo a lady, Hargrove.” She teases.

“Just don’t shoot at me again, Wheeler.”

\---

Harrington visits, once, and it’s  _ fucking awkward _ . 

His last, clear, definitive moment with the guy involved cracking his head open with a plate and having his testicles’ structural integrity threatened before being dosed like a feral dog - which, fair - so he’s floundering. Picking at the hospital sheets that are somehow too thin but also somehow making his legs sweat uncomfortably.

“I’m working on your car,” Harrington offers, loudly. Clears his throat and tries to talk at a decibel less akin to a Kiss concert. “Well, I mean.  _ We _ are, me, Hop, and Jon, but it’s, like,  _ super _ slow going because I don’t think any of us are really  _ car _ people, y’know. Oh, but there’s like, this Russian guy? That Hop knows somehow, who’s helping us and yeah he’s like,  _ actually  _ Russian like  _ what’s up comrade _ or whatever kind of Russian, but none of us  _ speak _ Russian so it’s a lot of  _ pointing _ and Hop  _ yelling _ so - “

“Fuckin’ Christ, Harrington,  _ shut the hell up _ ,” Billy snaps. Harrington flushes and shuts his mouth like his molars are magnetised, and Billy would feel kinda bad about that but really. For God’s sake.

The silence stretches and Billy is about to throw the guy a bone before he fucking collapses from the tension he’s holding in his shoulders before Steve blurts out - again, way too fucking loudly - “I like your hair.”

Billy points at the door and tells him to get out.

\---

He thinks about how pink with embarrassment Harrington had gotten and how it was cute in that ugly-cute kind of way. Jane - who’d arrived with all her usual non-obtrusiveness at some point - graciously allows him a full twenty seconds of trying to smother that thought out his brain before taking his pillow off his face and fluffing it for him.

\---

Wheeler comes by once with Byers, who is understandably wary of him, but still asks if he’d be cool to talk with his younger brother sometime, like his hospital room is host to some sort of support group. 

“No,” Billy says shortly, because he’s not a fucking therapist and he has his own Mack truck full of baggage from this fucking nightmare he has to get through and he doesn’t need anyone hitching their trailer to his.

Jonathan just acquiesces to the refusal in that sad boy way he has, and god that drives Billy right up the fucking wall more than Wheeler giving him the I’m Disappointed in You eyes.

“God, fucking - fine. I will talk to your brother. Once.” He holds up a finger to punctuate just how singular this discussion will be before gesturing grandly at the door so they can invite themselves the fuck out.

Because heaven fucking forfend he be allowed to be an unapproachable asshole while bedridden.

\---

Byers the elder introduces Byers the younger to him as Will, and then scuttles out of the room. Presumably to let the stench of anxious weirdo waft the halls or whatever the hell he does.

The kid looks as exhausted as Billy feels, which is fair considering he’s been through this shit twice now apparently on top of having that truly unfortunate haircut.

Billy tries his best not to outright glare at Will as he talks a seat, but ends up sort of staring intensely.

“What do you think of the name, ‘Mind Flayer Survivors.’ The MFS. Muh-thurr-fuck-errs,” he says quickly, watching for the reaction.

Will looks at him, and smiles that same shaky sad boy smile his older brother has.

“I like it,” he says.

\---

“Does it ever, like… stop,” Billy asks, quietly.

Will doesn’t say anything, but the silence is imploring.

“Like… feeling like if you do one thing wrong or if you don’t pay attention it’ll just. Be back. And no one will know.”

Will looks down at his hands. Billy does too and notices the kid has a habit of picking the skin around his nails.

It’s quiet for a very long time before Will answers.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I don’t know.”

\---

Billy doesn’t sleep that night.

\---

Will comes by with Max and Jane every so often. Sometimes their conversations border on normal. Will’s setting up a new campaign, whatever that means. Max is trying some more intense skateboard tricks and wishes Jane still had her powers so she could make her float long enough to pull of 2070, like that’s a real thing.

Billy frowns. “You lost your, like - “ he flutters his hand expressively.

Jane nods, looking pensive. “I can hear thoughts, if I think, and it’s quiet. But I can’t move things. And I can’t look for things.” 

Billy remembers sitting there on his bed. For hours. The feeling of water under his feet despite being in his room. Someone being there despite the room being empty. He shudders.

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Will offers. “Now Max can’t ask you to spy on us anymore at your sleepovers.”

Max rolls her eyes. “Just because you guys are embarrassed you got caught being the lamest boys on the planet - “

“ - there’s this thing called  _ privacy _ , maybe you’ve heard - “

“ - and that wizard costume, oh my  _ God _ \- “

“ - the Wise is a  _ mage _ , and it’s for the  _ atmosphere _ \- “

“ - like, going to this new place called  _ outside _ ? There’s these things called - “

Billy looks at Jane and they roll their eyes, and sit awash in the comforting sound of teen bullshit, until a nurse tells unceremoniously boots them out.

\---

Hopper’s by one day when he asks how in fuck he’s been able to afford to be in the hospital this long without his ass being dumped in the gutter.

The explanation is long, and involves circling back to those suits that had him sign a bunch of shit when he was, frankly, whacked off his ass on painkillers, but the gist of it is, “hey, you almost died in a situation related to another situation the government covered up so as long as you keep your mouth shut we’ll foot the bill and you get some checks in the mail.”

He’ll take it.

\---

Hopper’s by again when Billy asks, quietly, about his family. His house. 

“You don’t have to go back,” Hopper says bluntly. Like he knows, because he probably does. It was on his chart. “Multiple prior injuries,” had been noted, and it had probably been easy for a fucking cop to match those up with injuries matching abuse.

Billy closes his eyes. Technically, he’s right. He could get a place with his government hush money. Get the  _ fuck  _ away from Neil. 

Could get out of Hawkins.

Could go anywhere.

But he has Max. And the Byers kid, and frankly he thinks Wheeler’s I’m Disappointed eyes could find him across oceans.

There’s Jane and her completely scattered music tastes.

Harrington, a situation that he’s not examining too closely right now.

So he can either tear out of there in his car, or any car, really, and say to hell with Hawkins, these people, and his whole shitty, shitty life.

Or he can go back to a place where his dad will probably end up killing him, but at least be mildly entertained by these fucking weirdoes before it happens

Billy kind of feels like crying because the choice isn’t a choice at all.

He just hopes Max fucking obeys curfew until his ribs heal.

\---

Hopper looks at him levelly when he gives his answer. And then proceeds to do what Billy is learning Hopper does best and do  _ whatever the fuck he wants _ .

“Yeah, no,” Hopper decides, “your home is insufficient for the level of outpatient care your condition requires.” He then stands and moves towards the door, droning what Billy is clearly a rehearsed act. “New and suitable living arrangements for the future must be procured lest your condition worsen and you fuck up all the hard work my daughter did keeping your heart going. I must find a doctor, posthaste, to sign off to remand you into adequate care so such a situation does not occur."

“That’s not a real fucking thing!” Billy shouts out the open door. “You’re fucking making that up! I’m fucking eighteen you asshole! This is adultnapping!”

\---

It is apparently, _kinda_ sort of a real thing, that Hopper stretched out to the very best of his corrupt Sheriff ability to somehow include a two bedroom house in the not too shitty part of town. Billy wonders how this town functions before remembering that mostly? It doesn’t.

Hopper shows him some photos he took of the place. “This is your room,” he says, flicking through photos of the space. It’s… a room, but it’s got two windows - “Corner room, in the back of the house,” Hopper tells him - a connecting bathroom - “Jane’s across the hall, I’m on the foldout,” - and a shallow closet.

He swallows thickly.

“What about Max,” he asks staring down at the photos. He can’t leave her in that house if she won’t be safe. One Billy is bad enough. He won’t let Neil make two.

Hopper leans in close enough that Billy actually leans back a little, unnerved. 

“I’ll handle it,” he simply says, and from his face Billy is inclined to believe him.

He lets himself believe in this. But only a little.

\---

When he’s sprung from the hospital it’s just before Christmas, and he gets to celebrate it by lurching uncomfortably around a living space he shares with a psychic and a vaguely alcoholic cop. Even when improved, his life is some sort of comedy skit. 

There’s a parade of visitors, who stay long enough to basically throw food and house items at him before fucking off to their own homes. 

Harrington, in a hilarious display of I Don’t Know What to Buy Another Guy, gets him a toiletry kit and some Drakko Noir.

“Gee, Harrington,” Billy deadpans. “It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

Harrington flushes and flees into the night, like some sort of floppy haired Christmas elf. It's a better gift than_ Drakko Noir_. Christ's sake.

Jane gets him an earring. He’d lost some, somehow, during Starcourt, and is glad to be able to start replacing them.

It’s a simple stud, and one of the holes is just open enough he can get it through. He shows it to her with a, “Ta-da,” and she gives him a thumbs-up.

Hopper gets him some clippers of his own.

“So you can fix that raggedy mop without having to have Jane steal my shit,” he says without heat. Billy runs his hand over the shaggier-than-is-attractive sides and thinks yeah, it’s a good call.

They watch not-Christmas movies and eat Chinese. Billy goes to sleep in a room that’s on the way to being something he could call his. Maybe Max could smuggle some of his posters to him.

He sleeps and dreams about Wheeler baking gingerbread men with a flamethrower, and Max doing kickflips to the moon.

\---

As late Christmas presents - he's not exactly solvent fresh out of the hospital - he gives Jane the first cigarette out of the first pack he buys and he gives Hopper a fucking coronary when he sees her trying to figure out how the lighter works.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah when i said i would handle the neil situation deftly i meant "barely, at all" because uh yeah i dont wanna write a fictional character's continued abuse when i have the power to avert it! so hopper pulls some bullshit and also moves out of that fucking shack they were living in
> 
> it was a hard situation to handle bc i dont think - or i guess i CHOOSE not to think - that billy would like. abandon another kid to that man. so i handwaved some bullshit to get him out while also keeping max safe bc [flips hair] i choose my OWN destiny
> 
> i hope no one hated the idea of billy shaving his head into the faux-hawk, i just thought it'd look good in my head. maybe i'll draw it out so there's SOME reference of what he looks like.


	4. take me as you please

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hopper lays down the law, billy returns to gainful employment and it's cyndi lauper's world, we're all just living in it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i gotta say im kinda blown back by the positivity this fic has gotten! i wrote the first three chapters jacked wayyyyyy the fuck up on caffeine in one night so i'm glad the story's being received well!
> 
> slight warning, there's description of a panic attack that's not super detailed, but it's there
> 
> alright let's kick it

Hopper lets Billy kinda fuck around until just after New Year’s, and then come The Rules.

They’re all at breakfast, Billy slumped over his coffee and Jane slumped over some Eggos because that’s apparently a food group for her, while Hopper writes in big red letters on top of a fridge whiteboard: The Rules.

“The Rules?” Billy asks, not believing this shit.

“The Rules,” Jane confirms, sounding extremely tired of this shit.

“The Rules,” Hopper rumbles, like if he says it deeper Billy’s gonna buy into this shit. 

The Rules are, basically:

_ Don’t take Jane places with too many people. _

But also:

_ Don’t let Jane go places by herself. _

“So it’s a thin line, huh,” Billy says dryly, like they don’t go places with people out doing people things.

Hopper glares and continues with his list:

_ DO NOT LET JANE BE IN A ROOM ALONE WITH A BOY EVER AT ALL ESPECIALLY WHEELER _ (this is written in red and underlined)

Jane makes noises of protest, but Hopper feigns an extremely short and spontaneous bout of deafness before she throws up her hands in annoyance.

Hopper adds a bullet under this reading:

_ Mike Wheeler is not allowed in this house more than 3 times a week, AND 10 times a month _

Jane glowers. “This is an infringement of my rights as an American citizen,” she states in a way that makes it clear she’s repeating something someone - probably Mike, for this exact situation - taught her to say.

“You’re thirteen, you have no rights,” Hopper tells her absently, writing the next rule down. “Also, three inch rule has now been expanded to six.”

It continues:

_ Don’t burn the fucking house down. _

Billy raises his eyebrows. “Is that actually serious?” He looks to Jane. “Did you set a house on fire?”

Jane shakes her head, like she’s embarrassed that she can’t put that on a resumeé. “I threw a train car, once,” she says nonchalantly like that’s not the sickest thing Billy’s ever heard.

Hopper rolls his eyes. “It’s not literal, Frick and Frack, I mean just don’t destroy the house when I’m not here. Or even when I _ am _ here. Actually,” and he turns back to the whiteboard to add:

_ No property damage whatsoever. _

Followed by:

_ Eggos only on weekend mornings. _

Jane responds to this by shoving one of her waffles in her mouth whole and chewing in the truly obnoxious way only a teenager can manage. Billy high-fives her and helps her pour maple syrup into her mouth while Hopper aggressively ignores them.

The next rule is_ : _

_ No smoking in the house, yes this includes me. _

Jane cheers at that one, and Billy wonders how much fucking smoke must’ve filled their weird psychic-hobo shack on the regular for that kind of reaction.

_ No drinking in the house, Billy that means you, but also me. _

Billy rolls his eyes and gives a sloppy salute. He can appreciate the loophole for what it is.

_ Watch out for each other. _

It’s the last one, and also the cheesiest one, so Billy slow claps it out. Hopper throws the marker at his head while Jane inhales the rest of her Eggos and flees.

\---

So the thing about having to change his bandages himself, Billy learns, is that he can no longer avoid actually looking at himself.

When the nurses did it he could just stare anywhere in his eyeline and avoid having to look at the gnarled mess of his chest and abdomen and _remember_.

Remember about how it felt to face that thing down, to feel it not only in his head, but rooting around in his guts, the blood the lights the screams someone’s screaming he’s screaming - 

In the end, he gets to meet Joyce Byers properly because he’s collapsed on the bathroom floor having a panic attack.

\---

Billy feels like he got hit by his car, again, once he remembers how to breathe, and is angry he can’t stop the shaking, or the tears.

Billy doesn’t know why Mrs. Byers - “Joyce, Billy, really,” she’d insisted, with a trademark Byers nervous smile - had sped halfway across town to help some punk she vaguely knows who also kind of trashed her house. Maybe it’s a mom thing.

It comes to him in jump cuts. Being on the floor. Jane coming in. Her face. Her leaving. The bathroom narrowing down to a pinpoint. His chest crushing in on itself like he was dropped to the bottom of the ocean.

And then suddenly Joyce.

She’d helped him come back down, hands fluttering like little concerned mom birds, but voice steady and firm. Helped him out of the bathroom, turned away from the mirror and onto his bed where he’d collapsed like his strings had been cut. 

He’d been doing so well, so fucking well not letting this take over and now he’s screwed it. He’s one breath away from sobbing because he couldn’t keep it together. He wants to scream but knows it’ll come out as a wail. He feels like a fucking child. He’s Billy Hargrove. He survived mind control, an alien, and Russians, kind of. He was the hottest lifeguard Hawkins had ever seen.

Billy feels a wave of nausea. He’ll probably never be able to take off his shirt again. Probably never be able to drive at night without completely losing his shit at every shadow. He laughs and it comes out as gurgling, choked sobs. Somehow his life finds new and impressive ways to fall to absolute shit in his hands.

Billy hates crying, mostly because Neil wouldn’t hold with that kind of weakness in his house, but also because he’s an ugly fucking crier. So he’s really batting one-fucking-thousand when Joyce comes in with a glass of water from the kitchen and he’s sitting there sobbing with snot dripping out of his nose. Trying to pull his tough guy mask back on just makes it worse, and Billy starts to sound like a wounded deer, Christ. Let the earth open up and swallow him now.

Joyce, who Billy is starting to think may actually be a saint, gives him space until he feels a little less like he’s going to shake apart completely before speaking.

“I know you don’t want to talk about it now, or at all, probably,” she starts, haltingly, “but if it ever starts to feel like a little too much, I’m always around, Billy.” She smiles, and it’s sad, and Billy remembers that she’s seen all this shit happen from the beginning.

That one night she came home and her kid wasn’t there.

Billy nods, and wipes his face.

\---

Later, Jane sits next to where he’s slumped on the couch mindlessly watching MTV, and they don’t talk. They stay like that until Hopper gets back, who immediately slumps into his armchair. A bunch of slumps, Billy thinks idly, watching Cyndi Lauper sing about something in flashy lycra. 

Billy manfully holds back the weird urge to laugh into the silence, until Jane flashes an image of Hopper wearing leopard print spandex _ directly into his brain _ and he kinda wants to die immediately but also begins howling out of nowhere. Jane is right there with him, giggling madly, and they can’t get themselves under control to answer Hopper for long enough that he just leaves them to their madness and retreats to the kitchen to cook dinner.

“I don’t know why I care for you _ ungrateful degenerates _,” he bellows from the stove, because Billy and Jane won’t stop singing about how Hop just wants to have fun.

\---

February’s starting and if Billy doesn’t find a reason to be out of the house even in shitty Indiana winter, he’s gonna start climbing the walls. The pool is of course an ice cube, even if was okay with his torso being any level of exposed, and Starcourt is summarily Fucked, even though he’d rather gargle sewer water than work in _ mall retail. _

He bluntly turns down any assistance from Hopper working for the sheriff's department or police station. “I’m not working for the fucking cops,” is his reason, and Hopper predictably makes a face at that, but Billy has morals as a certified renegade hellion, goddammit, and they will not be compromised.

So he ends up at the video store with the Buckley chick, who was apparently instrumental in discovering the nest of fucking Russians under the mall. 

“I hear you broke Steve’s face,” is what she leads with, and Billy feels guilty enough about that now to fumble his response. She laughs at him, and it’s only a little mean.

“If you wanted to really mess him up, though,” she says, eyes somehow assessing and dismissing him, “you should’ve cut, like, just enough of his hair in a place to be noticeable to everyone but him.”

Buckley’s cool, and also probably from hell, is what Billy decides. 

\---

“Are you and Harrington a thing,” Billy asks her once, after yelling at the Henderson kid a few aisles down to shut the fuck up and stop screaming about whether or not Han shot first.

She gives him a look, and it’s a look he’s gotten from a few girls back in California when they turned him down. Distantly polite, but still laughing at him, like he didn’t know something they did.

Which, as he found out later when he saw Carly Matthews swapping spit with Angie Turner at a kegger, he didn’t.

Wrongfooted again - Buckley’s _ really _ fucking good at doing that to him - he just gives her an awkward smile and a double thumbs up because apparently he’s an idiot now.

Buckley just rolls her eyes and pats him on the shoulder like he’s especially slow. 

\---

“You still figured it out faster than Steve, though,” she tells him later. “This was while we were whacked out of our minds after escaping the secret Russian later, so I guess I can like, cut him some slack there, but I’m never letting him live down that he thought my coming out was a confession of my passionate, undying heterosexual love for him.” She laughs at the memory. “I mean, I guess if you’re into lanky dudes with ridiculously large hair, Steve’s a steal, but really,” and she cups her hands in front of her chest in a way that makes even Billy feel like he needs an adult, “breasts? Are where it’s at, and Steve’s like twenty miles of flat road.”

Billy agrees that boobs are, generally, awesome, but also thinks that Steve’s hair is probably really soft, and that his chest would probably still feel good under his hands. His life is weird enough currently that he decides he can unpack that another day.

\---

It’s very teeny-bopper in a way that Billy would’ve been embarrassed about before, but he has like, _ friends _ now, that swing by the store for the express purpose of standing around talking with him and Buckley. Jonathan Byers has not shit taste in film, though he’s still a little arthouse-y, and Billy delights in ragging on whatever intellectual poser shit he’s been recommended. The brat pack rolls through constantly, and usually are removed unceremoniously by Buckley once she’s had enough of Billy and Max sniping at each other, Henderson shrieking with Sinclair about the nerd shit du jour, and Will gagging at Mike and Jane being MikeandJane. 

Billy’s with Will on that one, and thinks the Wheeler kid should just be banned from their house entirely.

Nancy comes by sometimes as well, which turns into the Buckley and Wheeler Bully Billy hour so he takes to hiding out back. Harrington is actually his shift relief, because if he and Buckley are working at the same time, no work is actually done, so more often than not he comes in early to chill with Billy and be the most awkward person alive.

Billy may have lost his game, but he has the excuse of being essentially possessed and then punctured like an air mattress. Harrington is just sad. 

Mostly they just smoke, and if Billy was poetic he’d say the wisps of smoke are the last gasps of their youth dissipating in front of their eyes, but mostly he just thinks it’s fucking cold. He’s huddled next to Harrington close enough for their arms to definitely be touching, but keeping the respectful dude distance even though frankly he’d climb inside Harrington’s hair just to not be freezing his ass off. 

He turns his head to say something to that effect and gets distracted by the faint glow from the cherry casting light on Harrington’s fingers. Watches smoke curl from his lips as he says something about something, and then hands the cig back to Billy.

Billy drags it down to the filter and thinks if he exhales explosively enough he can put off this crisis a little longer. Staring at Harrington’s fingers. God help him.

\---

He asks Robin how one would go about researching, “alternative interests,” and she doesn’t stop laughing for the rest of the day.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm choosing my own destiny and having billy be explicitly down to clown in terms of LGBT issues, but just be super awkward about it at first because he's just learning this is an option for him now. liberal californian y'all
> 
> i was back and forth on robin letting billy draw his own conclusions on this issue irt to her considering it's frankly none of his business, but all things considered i think the comedy of her "you are barking up the wrong fucking tree buddy" reaction is way funnier and more in character than anything else
> 
> i really need... to let steve speak again, but i'm enjoying having these two embarrass themselves at each other


	5. i drove all night to tell you, i wish that you would stay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HM. BEEN OVER A MONTH.
> 
> yeah august was really weird for me, and september continues to be weird but may be looking up! im basically long term couch surfing in nyc rn while job hunting and just takin each day as it comes. im not willing to drop this story but things happen so sorry that updates may be infrequent until i manage to carve out some semblance of stability for myself
> 
> anyways. movie night at hopper's place let's GO. short one because i think it ends up being kind of a transition in their relationship so i thought i'd hit that beat and move it along

Billy gets corralled somehow into a movie marathon at their house with Jane, Max, the other four idiots, and Steve, who is apparently their friend and long-suffering kind of babysitter. The genres are all over the map, with shit like, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” next to, “Alien.” 

Everyone takes a moment to project very  _ clearly _ and  _ feelingly _ into the air that Billy can tell them to axe that choice if he so desires. He covers his feelings of gratitude - which, weird - with standard asshole-ishness by telling them to fuck off and start the movie, and not to expect him to pay attention to this shit anyway. He distracts himself up to the chestburster scene by throwing popcorn into Harrington’s hair, which is when he gets an idea.

Oh, he’s  _ absolutely _ going to hell for this. Launched out of a cannon at four-thousand miles an hour straight into the ninth circle. But he, like. Can’t  _ not _ . It’s practically his fucking right to do what he’s about to do. By God, if not him, then  _ who _ ?

So he starts making strained grunts and noises in time with the movie, and right at the money shot, made all the more perfect because Jane is turning to look at him in concern, he screams so loud he hacks up a lung coughing at the end, because wow, throat strain. No one hears it though, because it’s  _ absolute fucking bedlam _ .

A  _ grenade _ could’ve come through the window and everyone would’ve reacted less. Will has somehow managed to straightjacket himself into a blanket, and Henderson is flipping the fuck out, shrieking and wrestling Sinclair in a bear hug like he’s trying to both hide behind him and wield him as some sort of weapon. Sinclair is also shrieking, hitting some killer whistle notes, while clawing at Max’s shoulder, who looks pale and shaken, and okay Billy maybe feels. Just a little guilty. A tiny pinch.

But then he sees Harrington’s face and oh, yeah totally worth it. Billy didn’t think hair could  _ actually _ stand on end in fright but Harrington lives to defy expectations.

He’s taking all this in while Jane and Max - who’s recovered admirably - beat the fuckin’ tar out of him with throw pillows as he positively  _ crows _ with laughter. Like, rolling around with tears in his eyes. 

Wheeler Jr. rants about how he wishes he’d been boiled in that sauna so they never had to deal with his shit. 

Billy shoves his hand up his shirt and pantomimes throttling himself in response, tongue lolling out for comedic effect, and graciously allows Max to attempt to garrote him with some Red Vines.

\---

Eventually, the children are dead to the world among the detritus of the night - Billy is  _ absolutely _ begging off sweeping up all that stale popcorn in the morning - so he and Harrington leave them to their coma in the living room and fuck off to Billy’s room.

“Cig?” Harrington offers, cracking the window slightly, which doesn’t stop the fucking frigid Indiana gale from gusting around the room. Jesus, this place is a frozen hellscape in the winter.

“Nah, man.” Billy thumps his chest, lightly. “Been fuckin’ with my chest too much, lately. And I’m not supposed to smoke in the house anyway, so shut the goddamn window.” He flops himself onto the bed, attempting to be casual and cool and not be obviously staring at Harrington as the guy shuts the window and takes in his room.

In truth, it’s not unlike his old room. Still the same genre of posters, some of them even the  _ same _ old posters he’d had. Some cult films, some bands, one topless blonde on a motorcycle because it drives Max crazy things like that exist, but she was a champ anyway and salvaged it. Harrington ghosts his hand over the products on his desk-turned-vanity, taking in the mirror, the hair spray, the comb. 

It’s…. weirdly intimate. Harrington’s seeing what pretty much no one outside his immediate family has ever seen, because fuck if he was bringing anyone home, and Hopper and Jane are their own individual brands of weird, so.

It’s intimate. 

Billy clears his throat and fidgets on the bed. Should he like… put on music? Is that weird? Would that create like… an  _ atmosphere _ ? Does he  _ want _ there to be an atmosphere? More importantly, does he want  _ Harrington _ to want there to be an atmosphere? 

Having pretty boys in your room is very stressful, Billy decides.

Neatly dodging away from the impact of  _ that _ particular thought, he gets up and puts on a Sabbath tape and notches the volume down to a dull roar. Neutral enough, no one ever got randy to War Pigs. Probably. Flings himself back onto his bed again and watches Harrington tilt his head and squint like an idiot at the spines. 

“Is Vonnegut,” and god bless his heart, he pronounces it  _ Vahn-ee-goot _ , “any good?” he asks.

Billy raises his eyebrows. Harrington is gonna make a great trophy husband. “Yeah, I’d say he’s made a few points in his time,” he says instead. “And it’s  _ Vonnegut _ , not whatever the fuck you just said. You can borrow that, if you want.” He gestures vaguely at the book, but Harrington’s already shaking his head.

“Nah, man, I don’t, uh. I don’t really read much.” Harrington scratches at his neck self-consciously. “I mean, like, I can read, I just don’t do it for fun. Like you do, I guess.” His eyes widen, panicked like he’s tripped a wire to some Billy Bomb. “It’s totally cool you do that though, I mean, because you’re, like, really smart, I’m just um. I’m not much of a reader is. The point.” 

Billy’s feeling magnanimous enough that he’s going to let whatever the fuck that was slide and just pats his bedspread. Harrington shuffles over and sinks into it like he wishes he would just continue sinking through the floor and hopefully into the molten core of the earth. Billy doesn’t blame him. That was kind of embarrassing for both of them.

“So if you don’t read for fun, pretty boy, what is it you actually  _ do _ ? Besides cart those gremlins around and smoke your shitty menthols behind a video store.” Billy’s half expecting Harrington to huff over that, hair puffing up like a rooster, but the guy actually seems to… shrink into himself. It’s. 

It’s actually kind of sad?

Harrington just fiddles with his hands and shrugs. “I guess I just watch TV and stuff. I take walks. I don’t really sleep much anymore, so it’s mostly just a lot of making sure everyone else is safe.” He hunches over his hands a little more, like there’s something cowing him. A hand on his shoulder and a disappointed voice in a sterile tone.

“I’m not really good at much,” Harrington admits quietly, and yep.

That is a certified Feeling. That is a Feeling that is coming from Billy over this stupid, beautiful, airhead sitting next to him on his bed.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey,” he repeats, with feeling, sitting up and grasping Harrington - Steve’s shoulder. “Look. Man, you don’t - don’t say that shit about yourself alright. You fought fuckin’ Russians underneath a mall in a sailor uniform, alright, that’s probably the most weird, badass thing anyone I know’s ever done.” 

Steve ghosts out a laugh at that, so Billy keeps going. “I don’t give a shit if you can recite On the Road to me cover to cover, alright, readings just like… a thing I do. Like watching TV is a thing you do, it’s fine. We got our hobbies man, don’t stress.” He claps his hand down on Steve’s shoulder before pulling back. “And whoever makes you say shit like that about yourself, I’ll kick their ass, hole in my chest or no.  _ Fuck _ them.”

Steve laughs true and proper at that, like a real laugh, and it’s dorky and giggly and Billy wants to get it in the studio and on cassette, play it over and over ‘til the tape wears out.

“I think my dad would have something to say about that, man,” he says, but he’s still smiling, so. Billy wins. Eat shit, Harrington the Elder.

“Man, fuck dads, like in general but also specifically ours,” he tells Steve, flopping back down and wriggling so they can lay side by side, carefully just far enough away from each other. “Like, if I’m gonna be a dad? Our dads would be so far from being fucking role models.”

Steve giggles again. “I can’t really see you in a  _ dad sweater _ , man.”

“Who says I’m wearing a sweater? I’m saying I’d be a dad, not lame like whatever you’re hallucinating over there.”

“Sweaters aren’t  _ lame _ ! Sweaters aren’t lame,  _ Billy _ , are you calling my sweaters  _ lame _ ?”

“I absolutely am,  _ Stevie _ , because they make you look like you fell out of a J. Crew catalog and are desperately trying to find your way back so you can change your chinos.”

“Man,  _ fuck _ you, just because I know how to button my damn shirt -”

“Maybe if this state didn’t turn into the lowest circle of  _ hell _ for five months out of the fuckin’ year - “

“Hell is  _ hot _ ,  _ dumbass _ \- “

“I’m talking about in the  _ Inferno _ \- “

“Oh, oh wait, I know this one. That was Kurt Russell in that, right?”

“Oh. My  _ God _ .”

And the rest of their night is pretty much that. Easily makes Billy’s Top Three list.

\---


End file.
